(Issue, Monday, August 22, 2016)
The
Judiciary of The Gambia, in collaboration with Social Security and Housing
Finance Corporation (SSHFC), recently organised a training workshop for
magistrates, court registrars and assistant registrars to help in the
implementation of Section 69 of the SSHFC Act.
Speaking
on the occasion, Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle said SSHFC is the largest
institution, most influential and the strongest property development in The
Gambia.
He
said helping the corporation in the implementation of its mandates would
enhance its ability to continue to develop The Gambia by continuing to assist
Gambians to access housing at “an affordable rate”.
He
said there is a need to fast-track matters dealing with finances such as debts,
rates and related issues of the corporation which are now handled by special
tribunal for expediency.
Edward
Graham, managing director of SSFHC, said the special tribunal is to stop the
way people have been manipulating their contributions to the corporation.
He
said some people use to deliberately decide to manipulate their social security
contributions because they know that even if the corporation takes them to
court, the case could drag for 1 to 2 years.
“So
when our management put head together, we decided that there must be a way and
that is to set up a special tribunal, special court system,” he said.
“This
system is going to deal with all payment issues of Social Security and when I
went to the Chief Justice to express our concern and our solution, he took it
up seriously and we had a big collaboration.
“With
the collaboration of the judiciary, we hope to get people and institutions to
pay their monies in time to the Social Security because with a tribunal dealing
with only our cases, the time that it will take to solve this problem will be
extremely shorter compared to the regular court system.”
